Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat senator from Minnesota, led the bipartisan commission of six lawmakers who filed the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act. Its purpose is to allow Americans to do business with the most populous insular Caribbean economy.
“The legislation could open the way to new opportunities for US businesses and farmers to boost US exports,” reads a statement posted on the official website of Klobuchar.
The proposal eliminates key points of previous laws that forbid trade and investment of US citizens in Cuba. It would lift restrictions on the prohibitive transactions between US companies and Cuba, as well as limitations to direct shipments between the ports of both countries.
The group that introduced The Freedom to Export to Cuba Act to the upper house of Congress is composed of three Senate Democrats and two Republicans, including Jeff Flake, a conservative in favor of the rapprochement to the government of Raul Castro.
The law does not mention other points of concern for the government of Raul Castro, as the persecution against financial operations of his country, which Havana considers part of the embargo. Cuba hopes President Barack Obama deepen his executive initiatives to end economic sanctions without congressional approval.
Klobuchar follows the same line of President Obama, emphasizing the disadvantages of keeping a useless war economic policy. “Fifty years of blockade have not secured our interests in Cuba and has disadvantaged Americans entrepreneurs to restrict trade with a market of eleven million inhabitants just ninety miles from our shores,” Klobuchar said in its statement.
